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“Does it bother gege?” Hua Cheng inquired, voice tinged with a bit of worry.
“What is my San Lang asking about?” Xie Lian asked back, genuinely confused, while he gathered the many sheets of gold foil that had scattered around.
They had been playing together, building structures with them, something that Xie Lian had not done in a long time. It inevitably made him think of his childhood.
“Gege grimaced when I made it collapse,” Hua Cheng explained.
“Oh, I did?” Xie Lian had not noticed that his discomfort had slipped through the cracks of his usually calm countenance. “Well, it's nothing serious, so there's no need to worry.”
“Then it does bother gege,” Hua Cheng concluded. “I'll be more mindful in the future.”
“No, no, there’s no need!” Seeing Hua Cheng’s expression, Xie Lian added, “San Lang should have fun, same as I do. And you like the moment when it falls the most, right?”
“Not if it makes gege feel sad,” Hua Cheng said, making Xie Lian shake his head.
“It doesn’t make me sad, San Lang.” It was… a bit difficult for him to explain. Or rather, a little bit embarrassing. “I just feel… frustrated, I guess, whenever they fall.” Then, he covered his face with a hand and mumbled, “When I was a kid, I used to throw tantrums each and every time it happened!”
Hua Cheng couldn’t help but laugh a bit at that, completely endeared.
“It’s the gold foil’s fault for not holding up for longer, gege,” Hua Cheng said, smiling.
All Xie Lian managed to say in response was some sort of groan, making Hua Cheng laugh again, and then approaching Xie Lian to cover the hand that was hiding his face, with lots of tiny kisses, until Xie Lian removed it, allowing Hua Cheng to kiss all over his face, making him laugh too.
“I just wish I could keep stacking them forever. Or, well, for longer, at least,” Xie Lian explained, after kissing his husband for a while, because of course he could not resist. “In a way, it feels like… the deep focus I can reach while meditating. So being thrown off of it in such a sudden way is not exactly a nice feeling.”
“We could use a stasis talisman, so the structure won’t collapse if gege wants to take a break and come back later,” Hua Cheng suggested, placing a kiss on top of Xie Lian’s head. “Then gege can play with it for longer. This San Lang will not make them fall. At least not the ones gege builds himself.”
“Ah, San Lang, you’re so sweet. But… they’re still going to fall at some point.” It would be silly to try to avoid that, and he felt like, after more than eight hundred years alive, he should have stopped feeling this way about something so trivial. “That’s inevitable. It’s just part of the game, even if I don’t like it."
"But gege would have fun for longer that way,” Hua Cheng insisted. “And we can always start again, whenever gege wants. I think it’s a good compromise. What good would a game be, if the players are not having any fun with it?"
“I do have fun! I just have to stop being so immature about it.” Of course Xie Lian refused to budge. But that didn’t mean Hua Cheng would give up on his attempt to make things easier for his husband.
Hua Cheng took Xie Lian’s hands in his own, and looked at his face, feeling a bit pained by the way Xie Lian still insisted on ignoring his own feelings, or tried to make them seem just silly stuff without any worth. But Hua Cheng was determined to get Xie Lian to change those bad habits.
“There’s nothing immature about the way you feel, gege. You don’t have to hide that frustration for this San Lang’s sake.” He would simply not allow it, and was always observant of Xie Lian’s reactions and needs. “It doesn’t bother me. We can find ways to deal with it too.”
“My San Lang is always indulging me too much,” Xie Lian said, which was his usual reaction to Hua Cheng’s attempts to get him to feel comfortable with his own needs.
“Isn’t that what a good husband is supposed to do?” Well, there was no way Xie Lian could refute that. And Hua Cheng was definitely the best husband in the whole Three Realms!
Xie Lian went back to gathering the scattered pieces of gold foil, counting them and organizing them, while Hua Cheng observed him. He had noticed before that Xie Lian liked to do it, and was quite efficient at it too. Maybe it relaxed him in a similar way that the rest of the game did?
“Would you like to go to the armory today, San Lang?” Xie Lian suggested, after he finished stashing everything away. “Maybe we could spar with different weapons this time.”
“I would like that very much, gege. That would be an excellent way to relieve the frustration too, wouldn’t it?” And watching Xie Lian’s peerless martial skill in action would be a nice little bonus.
So they did exactly that, and by the time they went to bed, Xie Lian was feeling much better.
“Thank you, San Lang,” he whispered against Hua Cheng’s chest, as they cuddled together in bed.
“It’s always my pleasure, gege.”